Roe v. Wade at 40

Wednesday

Jan 23, 2013 at 11:31 AMJan 23, 2013 at 11:33 AM

Truman State hosts Pro-Choice panel to discuss future of issue

Taylor Muller/@TaylorMullerKDE

In an effort to step away from the 40 years of bitter debate on abortion and reproductive rights, a panel organized by Truman State’s Women’s and Gender Studies committee and the Northeast Missouri chapter of the National Organization for Women sought to rise above the rancor and inflammatory language of the national abortion debate.

Held on the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 7-2 Roe V. Wade decision in 1973 that the choice to have an abortion is between a mother and her doctor based on a right to privacy, the panel was mostly non-confrontational during its two-hour discussion in Baldwin Hall at Truman State, with nearly all seven panelists expressing mostly Pro-Choice ideals and views.

The decision to not entertain a Pro-Life or anti-abortion stance was made with the knowledge that the Midwest and rural Missouri are more conservative on social issues than the university community, a panel organizer said.

“We deliberately put together a panel that would be contemplative and would present issues in a historical and political context,” said Linda Seidel, English professor and Women’s and Gender Studies committee member. “So it would not just be getting the inflammatory remarks because we have had that on both sides.”

“Pro-Choice doesn’t capture all the decisions, all the stories and all the ways people have to do what’s best for their families,” Thomas said.

Those decisions are sometimes lost in the narrative, Harker said, as she stood to publicly announce she had chosen to have an abortion in the past 10 years.

“It is time for the conflicted endings, the happy endings and the endings that were no ending at all, just a different sort of beginning,” Harker said, as she called for more narratives than the woe-struck and regretful mother following an abortion decision.

Harker compared her decision, based on the fact a second child would have meant less time and care for her disabled first-born, to countless other women’s decisions that were, as she viewed them, for the best.

“We know safe and legal access to abortion care has helped many, many women and families,” she said. “But we don’t hear those stories. They’re overwhelmed by stories of one hue.”

Parker, reflecting on the political science of the court’s historic decision, said currently abortion rights activists have been hesitant to bring any abortion-related cases to the Supreme Court in fear that the court’s conservative judges would mean the fives votes to overturn Roe v. Wade is a reality.

“But the legacy of Roe v. Wade is going to last longer likely [now] than if say someone like Mitt Romney had been elected,” Parker said.

Parker also proposed that instead of basing the court’s decision on a right to privacy, it could have made a similar ruling on equality or freedom basis, potentially making a more solid legal footing decades later.

“If it does get overturned, it’s back to the states and the states are nibbling away,” he said.